Hornady Manufacturing

Hornady Manufacturing Company

Type	Private
Industry	Ammunition
Founded	1949 (1949)
Founder	Joyce Hornady
Headquarters	Grand Island, Nebraska, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Products	Ammunition, handloading equipment and supplies.
Owner	Steve Hornady
Number of employees	200+ (April 2009)
Website	www.hornady.com
Footnotes / references Largest independent producer of bullets in the world

Hornady Manufacturing Company is an American manufacturer of ammunition and handloading components, based in Grand Island, Nebraska.

The company was founded by Joyce Hornady who started in the munitions business in the early 1940s when he teamed up with Vernon Speer to make bullet jackets from spent brass rimfire cases. After World War II, Hornady began buying up surplus manufacturing equipment from the US government—such as Waterbury-Farrell transfer presses, which are still in use by the company today. In 1964, Hornady began manufacturing rifle and pistol ammunition. The company is currently run by Joyce Hornady's son, Steve Hornady, who took over after his father's death in a plane crash in 1981.

Steve Hornady worked for Pacific Tool Company from 1960 to 1971, from the time the company moved from California to Nebraska until Pacific Tool was bought by Hornady. Pacific's DL-366 was their final progressive press and Hornady's first, and it is still manufactured by Hornady as the 366 Auto.

Hornady makes target shooting and hunting rounds as well as high quality self-defense loads. In 1990, the Hornady XTP (which stands for Extreme Terminal Performance) won the industry's Product Award of Merit 1990 from the National Association of Federal Licensed Dealers. The company was the primary developer of the .17 HMR and .17 HM2 rimfire cartridges, increasingly popular for small game and vermin hunting. Hornady has worked closely with firearms maker Sturm, Ruger on the development of the new line of Ruger cartridges including the .480 Ruger, .204 Ruger, and .375 Ruger.

The company developed the innovative LEVERevolution ammunition, which uses a spitzer bullet with a soft elastomer tip to give better aerodynamic performance than flatter bullets, while eliminating the risk of a shock driving the pointed polymer tip of a bullet in a lever action rifle's tube magazine into the primer of the cartridge in front, causing an explosion.